Patrick Stover

Patrick J. Stover, Ph.D. is Professor and Director of the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University.He graduated from Saint Joseph’s University with a BS degree in Chemistry and was awarded the Molloy Chemistry Award at graduation.He received a PhD degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the Medical College of Virginia and performed his postdoctoral studies in Nutritional Sciences at the University of California at Berkeley.

The Stover research group studies the fundamental chemical, biochemical, genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that underlie the relationships among nutrition, metabolism and risk for birth defects, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. We focus primarily on the B-vitamins folate and vitamin B12, their influence on nuclear and mitochondrial one-carbon metabolism, their downstream effects on cellular methylation, gene expression and genome stability, and their role in preventing human pathologies.

Patrick Stover teaches three classes for graduate students: NS7040, Grant Writing; NS6200, Translational Research and Evidence-based Policy and Practice in Nutrition; and teaches the B-vitamin section of NS6310, Micronutrients: Function, Homeostasis, and Assessment.

In 2014, Patrick Stover was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.He received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities and the Osborne and Mendel Award for outstanding recent basic research accomplishments in nutrition from the American Society for Nutrition, and a MERIT award from NIDDK-NIH. In 1996 he received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Clinton, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. He received the ERL Stokstad Award in Nutritional Biochemistry from the American Society for Nutritional Sciences and has been selected as an Outstanding Educator four times by Cornell Merrill Presidential Scholars. He is co-editor of the Annual Reviews of Nutrition.

Teaching and Advising Statement:

"What really matters in college is who meets whom, and when”.1

Learning is achieved and sustained most effectively as a never-ending social activity, whether it be through the engagement of formal courses, original research, mentoring, and through all worthwhile pursuits.

1 How College Works.Daniel F. Chambliss and Christopher G Takacs.Harvard University Press, 2014.

Current Professional Activities:

Director, Division of Nutritional Sciences

Vice President, American Society for Nutrition

Co-Editor: Annual Review of Nutrition

Cornell University Graduate Field Memberships:

Nutrition

Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology

Current Research Activities:

Our research program is investigating the fundemental mechanisms underlying the regulation of folate-mediated one-carbon metabolism and its role in mitochondrial and nuclear genome methylation and stability. Ongoing projects include the role of folate and vitamin B12 in nuclear de novo thymidylate synthesis, and its impact on human pathologies including neural tube defects, colon cancer, Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Current Extension Activities:

The Director of the Division of Nutritional Sciences provides oversight of DNS extension activities.